From an older (6/29/17) New York Times article by Charles M. Blow. While much of the article content is dated, I believe the following still holds true.
Trump was sent to Washington to strip it of all traces of Obama, to treat the Obama legacy as a historical oddity. Trump’s entire campaign was about undoing what Obama had done.
Indeed, much of what Trump has accomplished — and it hasn’t been much — has been to undo Obama’s accomplishments, like pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris climate agreement and reversing an Obama-era rule that helped prevent guns from being purchased by certain mentally ill people.
For Trump, even plans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act aren’t so much about creating better policy as they are about dismantling Obama’s legacy. The problem with Obamacare isn’t that it hasn’t borne fruit, but rather that it bears Obama’s name.
For Trump, the mark of being a successful president is the degree to which he can expunge Obama’s presidency.
As Blow says earlier in the article, “The whole world seemed to love Obama — and by extension, held America in high regard — but the world loathes Trump.”
And Trump knows it.
I believe it’s this realization that’s behind many of Trump’s actions. He’s trying so hard to accomplish something that will cause people all over the world to look up to him … to admire him … to respect him. But most of all, he wants to erase Obama’s legacy.
No doubt he’ll keep trying and, contrary to what his supporters believe, We the People will be the ones who will suffer in the long run.
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Visit Psychology Today for a comprehensive article on the emotion of hate.
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